


We That Have Free Souls

by Sharpiefan



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: S01 e01 Emissary, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened in the two weeks between the Withdrawal and the arrival of the Emissary? </p><p>The events leading up to, and including, <i>Emissary</i> from the perspective of Kira Nerys</p>
            </blockquote>





	We That Have Free Souls

**Author's Note:**

> While this is (literally) a WIP, I intend to update this regularly until it's done. Please check back often!
> 
> (Also: Comments are love. :D )

The first few weeks of freedom are heady, confused, joyful and more. Kira had volunteered for the newly reformed Militia and was given a commission almost as soon as they knew who she was, which cell she had been in. There were no uniforms, no combadges, no nothing, almost. But it was something, at least. She was to be stationed aboard Terok Nor, the mining station that had been the seat of power under the Cardassians: It had been where Gul Dukat was stationed to oversee the Occupation from above. Kira remembered her only visit to the place and shuddered, but took the assignment because it was something.

It was only once she'd agreed that they told her what she had already suspected: the Provisional Government had asked for the Federation to help, and they were going to be running the station, with Kira as its second-in-command, and the senior Bajoran officer, tasked to be the liaison between the Provisional Government and the Feds. And to be the top of the Bajoran chain of command – anything needing to go further up would have to go through her.

The station shone dully in the night sky as it orbited over the ruined Dakhur spaceport where Kira waited for the shuttle with her one bag beside her. She didn't have very much at all to take with her – had never had very much, of course. Living in hiding or on the run meant you couldn't have more possessions than would fit in an easily-carried bag, especially once you added in the weight and bulk of a phaser and rations and other necessary equipment. “These lights and things won't carry themselves,” she remembered Lupaza saying once, thrusting her hair back with her hand as she spoke.

So Kira's bag contained her few bits of spare clothing and a precious copy of one of the sacred texts, a book that she had taken with her from camp to camp to Resistance base to... Well, to Terok Nor now, it seemed.

She wondered what the other members of her cell would do now the Cardassians had left. Shakaar would have a farm – he'd spoken of nothing else, in those quiet looking-forward conversations they had on the rare occasions when they weren't fighting, weren't running, weren't hunting for things to keep body and _pagh_ together for one more day. Mobara had startled them all by declaring it his intention to follow the Prophets and join one of the religious orders. Kira hadn't really thought about it, but as soon as she heard that the Militia was to be re-formed and that they wanted former Resistance members, she knew what she would do.

So she was left standing here, waiting for the shuttle to land on what intact stretch of plascrete it could find – of the few vessels that could even fly, none of them had a transporter, and nobody aboard the station could be bothered scanning the surface for one Bajoran in particular to beam aboard. Or something.

The shuttle appeared and Kira turned her face away, wincing at the whine of the engines. Almost as soon as the door began to open, she was running for it – boarding and disembarking a shuttle was when you were at your most vulnerable, after all. She'd learned that lesson on her first mission with her cell.

She almost had to pinch herself when she realised that the person asking to see her papers was speaking Bajoran not Kardasi, and said 'please', and looked almost as astonished by the whole situation as Kira felt.

The flight didn't take long. There was a problem with the airlock, though, and nobody to release it from the other side. The giant cog-like door rolled back a foot or two but no more. Kira shrugged, shoved her bag through and squeezed through herself – she'd got through smaller gaps than that in her life.

No welcoming committee, from anyone. Somehow, she was not surprised – she would have been more surprised if there had been, although she would not have been surprised if that committee had been a group of Cardassian soldiers all ready and waiting to drag her down to Security for the gall of thinking that a member of the Shakaar could come up here and wander about as she chose.

She shrugged again, thankful that she had seen the plans of the station when preparing for her mission here three years before. She would walk to the station's core – there ought to be be people on the Promenade, at any rate.

And. No – there was a turbolift. What would be wrong in making her way to Ops now? She had to take over, didn't she? She looked down at herself. Yeah. Right. She was going to _walk_ there, take in as much as she could of the situation, like a good soldier, before confronting Gul Dukat in his own office.

She shivered a little, wiping suddenly clammy hands on her grubby trousers at the thought of it. Why couldn't a more experienced person do this? _Because there aren't any,_ a treacherous corner of her mind whispered. _You're all they've got. So you're going to have to face down the hara-cat in its own lair, Nerys._

There wasn't anyone out here and Kira wondered where they all were – the Cardassians hadn't left the station already, it wasn't like them to just _go_ , without drawing it out for as long as they could. She wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her tunic. The lighting – where it was working at all – and the environmental controls were both stuck at Cardassian-preferred settings: the lighting was dim and blue, the temperature felt more like noon in the Okana Desert.

She shifted her bag, light as it was, to her other shoulder, and tugged her shirt away from her skin. She had no uniform, but she _did_ have a combadge, which she hadn't remembered before. How could she have forgotten that? Once her posting had been confirmed, she'd been issued one - she was one of the very few people to receive one. She pulled it out of her pocket and fastened it to her tunic, below her right shoulder which would allow her to activate it with her left hand if she should happen to be holding a weapon. She felt distinctly uncomfortable without a weapon to hand, and paused, checking for hidden scanners or cameras before checking that her knife was in place in the sheath in her boot. No sense in walking into potential danger unarmed, after all.

She carried on, her pace brisk, despite the misgivings she felt inside. What if this was all a huge trick, designed to lure her, and others like her, out into the open where they could be arrested and executed?

She had no idea how long she had been walking when she finally reached another one of the massive cog-like doors. This one gave onto the Promenade and was already open. She took a deep breath and stepped through, wary of what she might find on the other side.


End file.
